Former Pakistani state minister Rukhsar Ahmed was arrested in the United Kingdom in July 2024 on suspicion of rape and trafficking children in care as part of a grooming gang, The Guardian reported.

Ahmed, 62, who was re-elected last week as a member of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly after five years out of office, is currently on police bail in the UK, according to The Guardian.

Ahmed was expected to answer bail at a police station in Manchester last month but failed to attend because he was “too unwell to fly”. At the same time, he was pictured on social media campaigning at election gatherings in Mirpur in northern Pakistan.

Ahmed represents the centre-right Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the party of Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. He was a minister in various state governments from 2006 until he lost his seat in 2021.

The Guardian said Greater Manchester Police (GMP) had sought to restrict Ahmed’s ability to travel abroad as part of his bail conditions, but a judge rejected tougher measures in July 2024.

Ahmed was arrested at Manchester airport on July 18, 2024, in relation to past child sexual abuse allegations linked to the Rusholme area of the city, where he lived for many years, The Guardian reported.

Detectives questioned Ahmed about allegations from at least two women who claimed he was involved in raping and trafficking them when they were young girls.

The ongoing investigation relates to allegations from several women concerning sexual abuse of children at care homes in the early 1990s, when Ahmed was in his late 20s, The Guardian said.

Ahmed is expected to answer police bail within the next six weeks. If he does not attend, GMP may issue a warrant for his arrest or take steps to extradite him, potentially causing a diplomatic row, according to The Guardian.

A senior PML-N leader in Pakistan-administered Kashmir said he had known Ahmed for at least two decades but was unaware of the rape allegations against him.

“We just heard that he was part of some groups in Manchester in the 1990s. But I personally didn’t know about such severe allegations existed against Ahmed,” he said.

The revelation comes weeks after Pakistan refused the UK government’s attempts to deport a freed ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang.

Shabir Ahmed, 73, was released from jail in July after serving 14 years of a 22-year sentence for 30 child rape offences.

Friends and associates described Rukhsar Ahmed as influential in Manchester’s Pakistani community because of his political role.

One associate in Rusholme described him as a “man of the people” and “one of the least corrupt people”, adding that Ahmed had visited the area recently.

The Guardian reported that Ahmed is known to have visited a popular Pakistani restaurant on Stockport Road in Longsight, near Rusholme, on numerous occasions.

Ahmed has more than 17,000 followers on Facebook and was pictured with friends in Rusholme as recently as May. Associates said he had visited the area regularly.

He is the owner of the former Gujjar Palace restaurant near Manchester’s Curry Mile. The restaurant was boarded up and derelict when The Guardian visited on Tuesday, while one local business owner said it had been closed since at least 2009.

Ahmed is the only director of the company that owns the restaurant, but it was almost struck off earlier this year after failing to file its accounts.